Please, sir, I want some more

I’ve been at Broadstairs in Kent this week, taking the seaside air, and in this especially Dickensian part of England, performing my best Dickens reenactments. Here at The Open’s Bollinger Tent, I make an impersonation of Oliver Twist.

Dickens took many summer holidays at Broadstairs, often staying at this home, now renamed Bleak House, right on the sea front. I’ve seen it on the market recently for £1.9 million; were it not so dear I would be very tempted to make an offer.

Just a few steps away we find the Micawber House, and the Barnaby Rudge pub, and there is a Charles Dickens pub, and there is a Dickens Rd., and in short the town of Broadstairs made a wonderful destination for Dickens, and it makes a great destination for me as well.

I can imagine Dickens walking these same streets, enjoying the same ocean breezes, the biting July squalls, the chill that invariably accompanies a seaside holiday here. 

This week has necessarily involved a few feats of extraordinary pedestrianism. I walked nearly from Margate to Broadstairs, and back again. I’ve walked from Sandwich station to Royal St. Georges for the Open Championship, not a short walk, on five days this week, and I’ve walked along the white cliffs so typical of this section of the coast.

It can be a bit tricky to frame a photo when one is trying to capture the full grandeur of the landscape and the full rakishness of my activities. I trust the ambience of the town is conveyed fully. 

One can imagine Dickens having ice cream on a cold and rainy day after a long walk, can’t we? I tried to imagine Dickens going for a nice dinner at the Broadstairs Tandoori Restaurant, but couldn’t quite do it. So I didn’t either.

And like Mr. Dick in Copperfield, I’ve also been working assiduously, but have been distracted by the beheading of King Charles the First. Allegorically, of course. Unlike Mr. Dick, I have made a tremendous breakthrough in my work and I now proudly present you with an interactive bubble chart of climatological normals for selected world cities where warm-season grasses are often grown. Click here or click the chart image below to get the full interactive bubble chart experience. And with that, I’m off for another walk along the white cliffs.